Phil Fish has become a very well known game developer since his appearance on Indie Game: The Movie. Indie game is a documentary that was filmed to showcase the hard life of indie game developers, but unfortunately it, at times, gives in to sensationalism in an attempt to garner more downloads. This is most notable in it's portrayal of the development of FEZ, Phil Fish's brainchild. It shows a very biased view of the conflict which occurred between Fish and his ex-partner, who abandoned the project part way through. The movie never explores the reasoning behind his departure, and rather just focuses on Fish while portraying his ex partner as a jerk who wants nothing more than for Fish to fail. All this without his partner even appearing in the film. After the film's release, there was much criticism of it's portrayal of the situation by people who were working with Fish's ex partner at the time. It appears that Fish may have been treating him badly, and eventually his ex partner decided enough was enough and left. The credibility of this account has just grown substantially after Fish went berserk on his twitter feed earlier today.

Replying to Marcus Beer's criticism on this gametrailers podcast, he managed to start a complete flamewar. Soon various tweets from members of the general public were posted to his feed, and he proceeded to go on an expletive and insult filled rampage (I have purposefully not included the pictures of these particular tweets, as firstly they were obviously just fueled by his rage at the time and secondly they wouldn't really add anything besides a PG13 rating to this blog). He seems to have finally cracked under the pressure of being so famous (or perhaps infamous) on the internet. In Indie Game, he seemed to be slightly unstable at certain points in the movie (at one point he made a comment that he would murder his ex partner in cold blood if he saw him), but this seems to have been the last straw. He later tweeted "im done. FEZ II is cancelled. goodbye." At first many thought this was just him throwing a tantrum, and that he would later go back on it, but he has confirmed that FEZ II is cancelled in a post on the official Polytron website. It is sad to see the death of a title that many were looking forward too, but this is the risk of getting so involved in the public and media perceptions of yourself.

I am disappointed with the way Beer incited the response from Fish and I am disappointed with the way Fish handled the criticism, but most of all I am disgusted by the response of the gaming public. As I'm writing this, there are still people posting hate on the Polytron website. What is it's purpose? We have driven a man who was, regardless of your opinion on his personality, a great game designer to the point where he feels he needs to leave the industry. This self destructive attitude of gamers towards those who work in the industry has to stop. It is unacceptable for people to act like this, whether in real life or on the internet.

Thanks for reading, let me know your opinion on the matter in the comments section below.

-MikeTGZA

]]>Sat, 27 Jul 2013 16:22:19 -0700Edithttp://www.ign.com/blogs/miketgza/2013/07/27/phil-fish-gone-off-the-rails#article_commentshttp://www.ign.com/blogs/miketgza/2013/07/26/my-opinion-world-war-z
So I know it's been a while since my last real blog post, and I never ended up posting anything on saturday/sunday like I promised I would. I was insanely busy trying to finish schoolwork while contributing a decent amount of time to the website I am now working for, as well as fitting in time for practice for my LoL team, which was supposed to be playing in a tournament that weekend, and I simply didn't have enough time to write a blog post too. Anyways, I just went to see World War Z at the cinema, and I must say, it lived up to my expectations.

That, of course, doesn't mean the movie was good. To be perfectly honest it was probably the worst movie I can remember seeing in the past 10 years or so. The acting was incredibly bad, as was the plot. I don't even know what more to say about the movie. It is a combination of the worst parts of horror and action, a ridiculous overuse of shakycam and Brad Pitt. At least the movie kept me entertained for most of the time, but unfortunately this was only due to an abundance of unintentional comedy. All that being said, however, it was exactly what I expected.

Even though it was a terrible, terrible movie, I found the experience of watching it to be very fun with a few friends, and rather hilarious. The supposed 'last hope of humanity', a young Harvard student who is an expert is viruses, dies a few minutes after his introduction, not to zombies, but by slipping and knocking his head on an airplane ramp. Wow. I don't know who wrote that bit but wow. Absolute comedic genius. Brad Pitt's performance was bland as ever, just like the character he was portraying. Typical has been actor playing a typical has been military guy. Needless to say, his performance didn't quite live up to the Fight Club Brad Pitt days.

Overall, I'd recommend this to anyone looking for a bad horror movie to watch with a bunch of friends. To anyone else who's not looking specifically to get some fun out of the unintentional comedy: Stay very, very far away from this one. Overall I'd rate it 0.5/5, though based on its unintentional comedic value I'd say 3/5.

Please comment and let me hear your opinions on World War Z. Also check out http://www.onlysp.com/ if you'd like to see more of my writing. You can also follow me here and on my twitter, which is linked on my profile page.

-MikeTGZA

]]>Fri, 26 Jul 2013 14:40:08 -0700Edithttp://www.ign.com/blogs/miketgza/2013/07/26/my-opinion-world-war-z#article_commentshttp://www.ign.com/blogs/miketgza/2013/07/19/big-update-some-bad-news-followed-by-some-really-awesome-news
I wrote a blog a few days back talking about how I'd been accepted for a writing position at a new website that was starting up, but that kinda fell through, unfortunately. I might still contribute a little bit on the side, but they are very new, and not really what I was looking for in terms of expanding my CV with experience with a site that looks professional, and that can help me grow as a writer. That's the bad news out of the way

The really awesome news? I got accepted by another site, and I've just written my first piece for them! I'll also be hopefully joining their podcast team as well as working on a video review template. If you wanna give the piece a look it's here, but it's just a news piece on Dead Rising 3, not an opinion piece or anything (though I'm pretty much free to write whatever type of article I want, so expect an editorial sometime in the future! )

I'll be writing a real piece for the blog either tomorrow or Sunday, so check back then!

-MikeTGZA

]]>Fri, 19 Jul 2013 15:30:40 -0700Edithttp://www.ign.com/blogs/miketgza/2013/07/19/big-update-some-bad-news-followed-by-some-really-awesome-news#article_commentshttp://www.ign.com/blogs/miketgza/2013/07/17/lone-survivor-first-impressions
I managed to pick up two of the games I included in my Steam Summer Sale Wishlist yesterday, namely Lone Survivor and Organ Trail, for a total cost of just under $5. I'm planning on releasing a Let's Play of Organ Trail with a friend of mine in the next few weeks, so I'm purposefully not touching that game until then, but I played about 30 minutes of Lone Survivor and thought I'd share my first impressions of the game, so anyone who is interested in picking the game up can get an idea of what it's all about.

I'm in a hallway. Dead end behind me, so I step forward into the next room. There's a man standing there with a box on his head. I approach him and try to speak to him, but he doesn't respond. There's a cup of coffee on the table. Awesome, double espresso! I down it in a single gulp. Woah! Something weird's going on... The room changed and there's a sound coming from the next doorway. Doesn't look like I have any way out of here except that doorway so I creep silently into the next room. There's a woman! I try to talk to her, but she doesn't respond either, she just stands there crying. I put my hand on her shoulder. What?! She disappeared, but the flashlight she was holding drops to the floor. I'm not crazy am I? I mean, the flashlight was really there! I sling it over my neck and test the batteries. Hey! The light wor-CRACK! Darkness. I wake up with a headache, and the torch is still there.

Lone Survivor's developers describe it as a 'psychological survival adventure' and, based on my play time, it seems to be a pretty accurate description of the ideas behind the game. The 'psychological' aspect of the game comes across very strongly and even in the first 10 minutes or so the game has you questioning everything you see in front of you. Real, or imagined?

The survival aspect, as far as I can tell, is mainly based around the need to eat. Once, towards the end of my short play session, my character complained that he was hungry. Luckily I had grabbed a little bit of food in the time that I had been exploring the building. There is a chance that the survival element could run much deeper, and that I just haven't played enough yet for that to come in to play, but I doubt it, as that would just complicate the game unnecessarily.

The control scheme is very simple, with the arrow keys used for movement and 'x' used to perform context sensitive actions. There are a few other key bindings, like spacebar, which is used to access the inventory, but the general idea seems to be a very controls light approach. I imagine this was done by the developers to put all the focus on the plot, without bogging down users too much in the controls, which would just detract from the immersion and suspense.

So far Lone Survivor has really impressed me, and I have high hopes for what it could evolve into in the next few hours that I spend with it. Few games are able to achieve the level of suspense that is contained in a psychological thriller. The only example that I can think of right now is Alan Wake. This could very well be one of them. The entire world has a sort of surreal element to it, and the game seems to warp seamlessly from reality to nightmare and back. The result is brilliantly suspenseful. I imagine that if Alfred Hitchcock had been a game designer, this is the game he would've designed.

Let me know your thoughts on the game if you've played it (no spoilers please!) and any recommendations of other games you think I should play/review in the comments below! Any advice and criticisms are also welcome.

-MikeTGZA

]]>Wed, 17 Jul 2013 11:10:53 -0700Edithttp://www.ign.com/blogs/miketgza/2013/07/17/lone-survivor-first-impressions#article_commentshttp://www.ign.com/blogs/miketgza/2013/07/15/tomb-raider-from-a-noobs-perspective-review
The Tomb Raider reboot, released earlier this year, was met with high critical acclaim. It managed to net a 9.1 from IGN, and an impressive 86% average on metacritic. There were, however, a number of series veterans who were upset about the shift to more action orientated gameplay from the classic puzzle solving the series is known for. This is not the first third person title which has received this sort of criticism. Splinter Cell: Conviction was met with similar complaints when it launched in 2010, with fans complaining that the stealth element of the game had been neglected in favour of blockbuster action movie style sequences. This article is primarily going to be a review of Tomb Raider, which I recently finished, but it will also lead into a second article in which I will discuss changing the core gameplay of a series in order to appeal to the mainstream market. Anyways, on to the review!

When I picked up Tomb Raider for the first time, I hadn't read any reviews on it, I just knew that it was a reboot of the franchise and that the cover art looked awesome. I was expecting a pretty average platforming/puzzle solving game with a bit of action mixed in, based on what I had heard about the previous titles in the series. Man, was I wrong. Tomb Raider starts off with a brief cinematic introduction showing Lara, the player character, on a ship. In typical adventure game fashion, the situation soon goes south and the ship is wrecked off the coast of an island. Lara manages to swim to shore, but is knocked unconscious by a mysterious figure as she tries to call her friends for help.

The game does an excellent job with it's early pacing, with Lara not involved in any direct combat for quite a while to emphasize her innocence at the beginning of the story. When she is eventually forced to kill someone is has a huge impact on her, and I think the development team did a great job in portraying the rather naive side of her first before showing her transition to the typical action heroine as it does add at least a little depth to the character, even if it isn't on the level of character development contained in works like 'The Last of Us'.

The combat system is fairly bland, though I actually enjoyed the way counterattacking is handled, with the player first needing to dodge the enemy's attack and then having to time a second button press well to perform the actual counter attack. Other than that it is pretty standard cover based gun play for the most part, but stealthy gameplay is heavily rewarded. Some areas are almost too easy if you take the stealthy route, but most of the time it takes a decent level of skill to clear an entire level without raising the alarm. Being able to create distractions by shooting arrows into walls and rocks near enemies is a nice touch. There are five weapons in the game, and each is heavily upgradable, though I found the system to be more of a choice of which weapon to upgrade first rather than having to choose between having a really strong bow or a really strong assault rifle. I suppose it's an okay system, but it doesn't really seem to fit the theme of survival and scavenging. Another nice point is that the cover isn't 'sticky cover' like in games such as Gears of War. Rather, Lara will just seamlessly duck into cover as she moves past appropriate terrain, which results in much smoother and realistic movement.

For the veterans, there was still a fair amount of puzzle solving gameplay in the form of tombs, though they are mostly, if not all, optional (I played all of them all and didn't take note at the time, but from what I've hear they were all made optional to cater for people who weren't interested in that type of gameplay). Some of the tombs were decently challenging, though I wouldn't use the 'survival instincts' mode (similar to the eagle vision in Assassins Creed; it highlights objectives and gives you visual hints by highlighting other crucial objects) while completing them if you are hoping for a decent challenge. The theme of the tombs also fits well with the rest of the story. Your reward for completing them is usually a decent chunk of salvage (used in weapon upgrades) as well as a 'treasure map' which displays all of a certain type of collectible in the area on your map, so you aren't forced to complete the tombs at all.

Tomb Raider uses an interesting 'Diary' system that allows you to understand the characters better. Lara's diary entries are unlocked gradually as you play through the game, and are used as both a secondary system of character development as well as summarising the plot at various key points. I think this is a great system to allow players who may be distracted during a particular section of play to catch up on what they missed. You can also find various diary entries written by the other characters which give each of them a little bit of depth, though they are still mostly just two dimensional props to be used in Lara's adventure. The plot is centered around the real-world ancient Japanese civilization 'Yamatai' and it's ruler, Himiko, the Sun Queen. I found it interesting enough, and the relic system is great for adding a bit of flavor to the environment.

Unfortunately, I did encounter a couple of bugs and graphical glitches in my time with the game. For example, when I was playing through the DLC tomb 'Tomb of the Lost Adventurer' I got to a point where my survival instincts seemed to indicate that I had to jump on a certain platform, however, when I jumped for it, I was only able to hold on to the ledge and hang unless I shifted right to the end of the ledge. I then attempted to pull myself up, which caused me to lose control while Lara slowly slid backwards off the ledge. I decided to just ignore the tomb, as it hardly seemed vital to the experience. In the end, nothing gamebreaking, but irritating nonetheless.

I had a great time with Tomb Raider. As a newcomer to the series, I can't really comment on how it compares to the other games, particularly with regards to the puzzle solving element. The plot and character development was decent, though everyone besides Lara were clearly just the supporting act. The game felt smooth and responsive for the most part, and the few bugs that I encountered weren't enough to sour the experience. Overall, I would give it an 8.5/10.

Do you agree with my rating and critiques? Let me know in the comments section!

-MikeTGZA

]]>Mon, 15 Jul 2013 13:28:12 -0700Edithttp://www.ign.com/blogs/miketgza/2013/07/15/tomb-raider-from-a-noobs-perspective-review#article_commentshttp://www.ign.com/blogs/miketgza/2013/07/14/steam-sale-wishlist-update
Hey guys! From my original wishlist I've already crossed off Scribblenauts as well as Dungeonland (I ended up buying the 4 pack with a bunch of friends and it cost us only about $3.50 or so each). Both have been pretty enjoyable so far, though I was getting some weird frame rate issues with the latter. Considering my PC can run Far Cry 3, Battlefield 3, etc. with above 40 fps it seems rather odd! xD

On to the new additions to my wishlist!

1). Fallout 3 GOTY - I have already done a full playthrough of Fallout 3, but I never played any of the DLC, and I got the non steam version of the game, so I can't just pay for the DLC (and I'm pretty sure the price of buying each of the pieces of DLC separately is greater than the price of the GOTY edition anyway ). I think the DLC for New Vegas was absolutely fantastic and added quite a lot of diversity to the game, so I'd be really interested to see if the same can be said for Fallout 3's DLC. In particular, the Mothership Zeta DLC looks pretty interesting, even if it is a bit of a strange change of theme. I'll probably pick this up at the standard sale price, but I'll wait until last day in case there's a

2). Organ Trail - I heard about this game from a friend a few months ago, and I thought about getting it then, but decided to leave it for when it came on sale. It's a retro style zombie survival game, and has been marked down to $2.99 for the summer sale. It's retro style graphics may turn away some people, but it contains a ton of great features which combine to form a true zombie survival game. The game uses a 'Choose Your Own Adventure' style system to determine what challenges your group of survivors will face. I'm probably just gonna buy this one, since I doubt it'll go much lower than it already is.

3). Hotline Miami - I had seen this game on steam before, but it was only yesterday when I was watching my friend play it on his PC that it really started to interest me. It was given an 8.8 by IGN, and looks to be both incredibly violent and incredibly fun. It boasts an arsenal of 35 different weapons for the player to make use of throughout their adventures in this exceptionally violent top down shooter. I think the graphical style is simply awesome, though I guess it's not for everyone. Unfortunately I missed out on a 75% off daily deal for this (which brought it down to only $2.50!) but I'm fairly confident it will go on another flash sale or be a daily deal on the encore day.

4). Lone Survivor - Honestly this one I just found when browsing the 'Less than $5' list on the front page, and i'm really glad I did. Another game where the visual style won't be for everyone, but in my opinion it's one of the best takes on the 'pixel art' style. The story apparently changes quite significantly depending on how you choose to play through this 2D sidescrolling take on the survival horror genre. IGN gave it a score of 8.5, and considering it is priced at only $3.39, i'm definitely considering picking it up.

5). Mark of the Ninja - I hadn't really taken any notice of this game until I was reading an article about the next game being made by the developers of Mark of the Ninja, an espionage themed turn based strategy game entitled 'Incognita'. In the article they talked briefly about the developer's previous works, which also included Don't Starve, one of my favorite games of the past year. So I watched a bit of gameplay and read some reviews of Mark of the Ninja and it seems like an amazing game. It has a metacritic average score of 91%, and IGN gave it a 9/10. It was put up as an option for a community vote which would have brought it down to a mere $3.75, but unfortunately it did not get enough votes to win. I'm fairly confident, however, that it will go up again at some point, either on a flash sale or daily deal. If it does then itll be a must buy for me and should be on the radar of anyone who is even remotely interested in stealth based gameplay.

Thanks for reading guys, hope you've enjoyed the second installment in my steam summer sale series (how's that for alliteration xP). Let me know what games you guys are picking up in the comments section below so I can take a look!

-MikeTGZA

]]>Sun, 14 Jul 2013 10:22:12 -0700Edithttp://www.ign.com/blogs/miketgza/2013/07/14/steam-sale-wishlist-update#article_commentshttp://www.ign.com/blogs/miketgza/2013/07/13/thanks
Hey guys, just wanted to make a quick post to thank everyone for all the support that I've been getting on my blogs. It's really awesome and encouraging to hear that people enjoy reading what I say, so I really appreciate it. I just got an email and I'm going to be writing Xbox 360 and possibly PC focused content for a new website that is launching soon. I'll let you guys know as soon as we've launched! I'm really excited for this opportunity to improve my writing skills

-MikeTGZA

]]>Sat, 13 Jul 2013 16:54:32 -0700Edithttp://www.ign.com/blogs/miketgza/2013/07/13/thanks#article_commentshttp://www.ign.com/blogs/miketgza/2013/07/13/my-opinion-comment-culture-and-moderation
There has been a huge uproar in the comments section of a recent post by Steve Butts, IGN's Editor-in-Chief. Entitled 'Changing the Comments at IGN', the article is an explanation of the new 'Comment Culture and Moderation' policies being implemented by the IGN staff along with the community moderators. I found the article to be an honest look at the state of the site's community, and I was impressed that Steve openly expressed a degree of guilt for the situation. He admits that one of the major reasons that the comments situation has gotten so bad is due to the fairly complacent attitude that has been taken by the staff and mods in the past. Perhaps more importantly though, he promises change. And that change is well overdue.

I've only been a registered member of IGN for a few days. Why? Well, it's pretty simple. That was about the time when I realised just how awesome the blogging community was. I have been reading IGN for years now, but I never really felt the desire to get involved due to the (absolutely terrible) representation of the community in the comments sections of most of the big articles. When I started reading a lot more from the blogs section I noticed an anomaly: People generally don't act like complete assholes in the comments sections of blogs. MyIGN is the host for an absolutely awesome community, as I have found out in my short time as a member. Imagine if the whole of the IGN community was as awesome and friendly as the MyIGN blogging community. I for one would find IGN much more enjoyable without all the trashtalking.

Anyways, that's just my opinion on the matter. I'll be doing my best to assist the staff and mods in this effort. Let's change IGN for the better guys, and encourage intelligent discussion and debate rather than mindless arguments filled with insulting and trashtalking. I understand that some people are worried that the mods might become a little overzealous in their efforts, but it's pointless to take such a pessimistic standpoint before even seeing the new system in action. Give it a few weeks before making your judgment. The mods and staff deserve a chance to make it work and honestly, even if it takes a few months, the reward will be well worth it.

What's your opinion on the new moderation guidelines? Let me know in the comments section! (I promise I won't downvote you or flame if you don't agree with me )

-MikeTGZA

]]>Sat, 13 Jul 2013 06:45:32 -0700Edithttp://www.ign.com/blogs/miketgza/2013/07/13/my-opinion-comment-culture-and-moderation#article_commentshttp://www.ign.com/blogs/miketgza/2013/07/11/introduction-time
I've already written a handful of blog posts in my few days as a member of MyIGN, but I haven't properly introduced myself yet. So, this blog will be a little more personal, just talking about who I am, what I'm interested in and where I want to be in five years time.

So, first things first, my name is Michael and I come from Cape Town, in South Africa. I'm a grade 11 high school student and a huge esports enthusiast. I spend most of my free time either gaming, messing around with video editing, working on my coding skills or (now) blogging. I enjoy drawing, but I'm not very good at it (I don't really have the time to practice with all my other hobbies as well as schoolwork) and I play the drums. My biggest passions are Gaming, Movies, and Music. Pretty much all of my hobbies, except for drumming, stem from my passion for gaming. I would love to have a successful youtube gaming channel and livestream (though livestreaming isn't really an option for me at the moment due to the quality of internet in South Africa). I'm planning to really start working on my youtube channel in the coming months, but I'm hoping to get a better microphone set up first, as I'm not happy with the sound quality I get from recording let's plays and other videos using my headphone's built in mic.

As for my aspirations and what I hope to have achieved in five years time, after I finish school I really want to emigrate to either the United States or to somewhere in Europe, though I'd probably have to get my degree here in South Africa first unless I got a scholarship/bursary to study internationally. I really want to harness my passion for gaming and esports in whatever field I get involved in, but besides that I don't really know exactly what type of work i want to go into. I love the idea of game design, and I am especially interested in gaming as a storytelling medium, but I also know that it is notoriously hard to break into the mainstream games industry, and to be successful in the indie games industry, one usually needs to be more of a 'jack of all trades', able to code as well as come up with game concepts and do graphical design (well, from what I've seen at least).

The other path that I can see myself choosing is to work in the gaming press. My English teachers seem to think I have a knack for writing (though I don't really think my creative writing is that great) and as you can see from some of the IGN staff like Greg Miller, it is possible to maintain a youtube channel while working at a place such as IGN, and working in the press allows you a bit of free extra exposure for your channel. I'd also love to get involved in esports in some way, regardless of what career path I end up taking. Getting involved in esports as a commentator would be a dream come true.

Anyways, I just thought I'd share a bit about myself for whoever takes the time to read it. If you've somehow managed to get through it without falling asleep then thank you for taking the time to read it and feel free to leave me a comment (even if it's just a bit of criticism to help me improve my posts!).

-MikeTGZA

]]>Thu, 11 Jul 2013 17:57:29 -0700Edithttp://www.ign.com/blogs/miketgza/2013/07/11/introduction-time#article_commentshttp://www.ign.com/blogs/miketgza/2013/07/11/scribblenauts-unlimited-first-impressions-d
As you will know if you read my last blog post, Scribblenauts was one of my top 5 must buy titles I selected for this summer sale, so I was very excited to see it as a daily deal right at the start of the sale. I snatched it up immediately (or I would have if I hadn't run into 'the steam store is currently overloaded' messages for half an hour straight ) and proceeded to download and install the game.

You really know you've got something special in front of you when you can achieve the goal of 'make this clown laugh again' by spawning in a gigantic hilarious incarnation of Cthulhu who proceeds to hop around the hospital making nurses laugh as they run away from an animated heart which started attacking everyone in it's vicinity. Hey, it got the clown laughing, right?

I played about an hour and a half or so of the game and so far it doesn't disappoint. The graphics look really great, and honestly I could just sit around for ages just tinkering with various different and ridiculous ways of solving the puzzles, and I've barely dipped my toes in the workshop content!

All in all, from my first taste of the game, and it's incredibly low price tag of $5, I highly recommend that anyone that is even remotely interested by the concept gives it a try. For a $5 deal one can't really go that wrong!

Let me know what deals you're picking up or looking forward to in the comments so I can have an excuse to add to my must buy list!

-MikeTGZA

]]>Thu, 11 Jul 2013 16:18:42 -0700Edithttp://www.ign.com/blogs/miketgza/2013/07/11/scribblenauts-unlimited-first-impressions-d#article_commentshttp://www.ign.com/blogs/miketgza/2013/07/11/my-steam-sale-wishlist
I'm sitting in front of my PC in anticipation of the Steam Summer Sale which allegedly starts today. There are a few games I've had my eye on for a while now, and soon i'll have my chance to snatch 'em up at a fraction of their usual price. So, considering I need to blow some time before this thing actually starts, I figured I would make a list of my top 5 most wanted sales. Enjoy!

1). Scribblenauts: Unlimited - This game received pretty good reviews all round, but I was unable to purchase it at launch or even during the holiday sale of last year because of the weird region release dates (Don't ask me why but it took them until sometime early this year to make it available to buy for me). Definite must buy for me if it goes on sale for less than $10!

2). Monaco: What's yours is mine - This game looks simply amazing. I have watched a few gameplay videos and it looks really fun, especially for co-op play with friends. Almost certainly gonna buy this, even if it never gets a flash sale or daily deal, but hopefully I'll be able to save a little extra cash! xD

3). Dungeonland - At first glance this game doesn't look that great, I mean, it's Metacritic average is only 67, so it's not a masterpiece or anything. However, I watched a let's play of the 4 player co-op (3 players act as the heroes while the other acts as the Dungeon Maestro) and it looked like an insanely fun game to play with a couple friends.

4). Borderlands 2 DLC - Although I prepurchased the actual game, I haven't bought any of the DLC, and in fact I haven't even finished it. The DLC however has gotten rave reviews and I do want to go back and play the full game with a couple of friends as the co-op is really great.

5). Rogue Legacy - The game was recently released and instantly became a huge hit. I'm a fan of roguelikes such as FTL and Dungeons of Dredmor so if you combine the permadeath and addictive nature of those games with platforming and a good dose of humor, you get pure gaming gold. It's price point is already fairly low at $15, but if it gets a drop of the summer sale magic it could be the one of the best deals of the entire sale.

So, what are your must buy games of the sale? Or are you abstaining from the sale this year? Let me know in the comments!

-MikeTGZA

]]>Thu, 11 Jul 2013 11:14:47 -0700Edithttp://www.ign.com/blogs/miketgza/2013/07/11/my-steam-sale-wishlist#article_commentshttp://www.ign.com/blogs/miketgza/2013/07/11/my-top-ten-rpgs
The inspiration for this post came from Chilidogg's post on his blog. Originally I was just going to give my top ten there (and I probably still will) but as I was writing the list I noticed that my comment was basically a blog post in itself Anyways, enjoy!

10). Dead Island - Regardless of the various technical issues the game experienced, it is great fun if you get it running. The story is completely forgettable, but then that isn't really the focus of the game. It's a co-op first person aRPG. If you get together a group of of four for a playthrough, it's one of the best RPGs around in terms of pure fun.

9). Borderlands - I have chosen the original and not the sequel because personally I had more fun in Borderlands 1. I remember organising to have a LAN with my 3 best gamer friends on the day of release. We spent the whole weekend just blasting our way through the story and trying out different characters. It was awesome As for the game, Borderlands 2 may have made a ton of improvements to the formula, but the original was a great game nonetheless.

8). Fable - I sank so many hours into this game. It was awesome to be able to murder pretty much anyone, steal their goods or buy their property. The freedom it gave was amazing. Honestly I can't remember the story much, but it was probably one of the most fun RPGs I ever played.

7). Deus Ex: Human Revolution - I really enjoyed this game, and the variety of play styles it endorsed. In that sense it's a great RPG, as it let you play the way you wanted to. The story was fairly interesting, but nothing particularly special.

6). Neverwinter Nights 2 - A decent story with co-op play and highly tactical combat is a great combination. The module system is great for custom campaigns and quests. Expansions such as Mask of the Betrayer and Storm of Zehir added a lot of depth to the game. I was really disappointed when Neverwinter was announced as being a F2P MMO. I honestly think that with the new technology available, a traditional RPG sequel could be incredibly successful (as long as it kept the old feature set of modding support and co-op play).

5). Nox - An old aRPG, but a brilliant one. Fairly difficult, and with 3 different paths to take which gave a bunch of replay value. (God damn, thinking about it now really makes me want to do another play through xD)

4). Dragon Age: Origins - Bioware are the masters of the RPG, and DA:O is one of their best in my opinion. The story was pretty good and I found combat enjoyable for the most part. The companions in the game are interesting and multi-layered, requiring effort to uncover their true personalities.

3). Mount and Blade: Warband - Absolutely brilliant game. I feel it truly captures what an RPG should be: a living world where everything doesnt revolve around the character, but also a world filled to the brim with opportunities. Some of the best stories come out of it's sandbox, 'forge your own story' approach. How often will you go up to a friend after playing an RPG with a heavily scripted story and have something to tell them that they didn't experience themselves? In mount and blade, they're unlikely to have played through the same siege as you did when you only had 20 men against 250 and managed to hold the castle. The game also has enough strategic depth that it doesn't have to be a mindless charge in every battle (unless you want it to be!)

2). Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic - Brilliant setting, and the game play was solid for the time. I was incredibly disapointed by the decision to make The Old Republic as an MMO instead of as a real RPG.

1). Fallout New Vegas - What I love about the fallout series is it's mixture of utter bleakness (civilization as we know it has been completely wiped out, bandits rule the wastes and murder is commonplace) with some comedy to lighten the mood. I'm also just a sucker for the post apocalyptic setting Oh, and who can forget the music!

Let me know your Top Ten RPGs in the comments!

-MikeTGZA

]]>Thu, 11 Jul 2013 02:48:45 -0700Edithttp://www.ign.com/blogs/miketgza/2013/07/11/my-top-ten-rpgs#article_commentshttp://www.ign.com/blogs/miketgza/2013/07/09/the-last-of-us-is-not-only-a-masterpiece-of-gaming-it-is-art-spoiler-free
I would like to point out that I wasn't able to actually play 'The Last of Us' first hand, as I do not actually own a PS3 console, but I did watch an entire play through on youtube. This gave me an interesting outlook on the game as a whole.

We are at the point in the current generation of consoles where developers like Naughty Dogs start to push past the boundaries of what we expect from a PS3 or an Xbox 360 title. 'The Last of Us' had a combination of stunning visuals, great audio and, above all, a captivating story. When backed up by solid gameplay, which felt fresh in many ways, this created a title worthy of a perfect 10 from IGN and a Metacritic average of 95%. I refused to read a single review of the game before watching it for myself to prevent any bias from creeping into my opinion, but after finishing the playthrough I must say, I agree wholeheartedly with these scores. But this post wasn't made to just shower Naughty Dogs with glory. Rather, I want to use 'The Last of Us' as evidence that games can indeed be considered art.

While watching the playthrough I gradually became aware of just how much of an emotional impact the game was able to evoke in me. I felt a true connection to the characters on screen. I felt like Joel was a good friend and Ellie was a younger sister. I cared for them to some degree. Now some games have attempted this before to varying degrees of success, but I can honestly say that I have never been so moved by a game as I was by The Last of Us. I want to avoid any spoilers for those of you who haven't had the chance to experience the game yet, so I won't go too in depth about my feelings about the ending, but I was genuinely surprised. It was entirely true to the characters, and it was definitely the right ending and that is exactly what I found surprising. I found it hard to believe that anyone could pull off an entirely perfect story, so by the end I was expecting them to cop out. They damn sure didn't.

In retrospect, the emotional attachment I felt with the characters is even more impressive, as I wasn't even in control of the game. In fact, the way I experienced The Last of Us was as a movie. Film (and photography as a whole) started becoming accepted as art during the golden age of Hollywood. So why, considering how close some games have become to movies, are games not yet considered art by the mainstream? I think it's just a matter of time. Our society is rather conservative about many things, and art is one of them. It takes decades for new ideas to become accepted in the mainstream, and that's how it's always been. Games are the modern Van Gogh (without any ear chopping antics, though maybe that's what restrictive, always online DRM is to the games industry: Self mutilation). Eventually, with games such as The Last of Us pushing the boundaries between Game and Movie, the industry will get the recognition it rightly deserves.

Honestly, for me, this next generation is going to be all about the innovation. We can already see a lot of the power that the upgraded hardware will bring to consoles by looking at some PC games. But I'm hoping the new power wont be devoted entirely to prettier visuals (though they are always nice ) with bigger explosions. I'm hoping that some of it can instead be harnessed to create new, unique experiences. More than that, I'm hoping for more and more new IPs instead of the same sequels every year. Above all, however, I just hope that I can experience that same emotional turmoil I felt from The Last of Us. Maybe first hand this time, though